Outdoor Notebook: Bad fishing weather produced great results
One week ago my alarm clock woke me at 6 a.m. As I lay there trying to map out the day ahead, I could hear water dripping from the roof. It seemed that the water was coming down at a rapid rate.
After I came to a bit and looked out the window toward the lake, the deck was covered with that strange white “stuff.” It was also evident in places in the front yard. Of course it was snow falling from the sky in large, wet flakes.
The fact that snow was coming down was a concern since we had eight guests in town to fish for the weekend. The Thermometer showed that the temperature was reading 30 degrees.
Our group gathered at Holiday Acres Resort for breakfast and to complain about the weather. I chose to drive north to Eagle River in an effort to put a musky or two in the boat. The Eagle River Chain of Lakes was chosen since there were places we could fish and get out of the wind.
As we drove through Sugar Camp we saw areas where the snow appeared to be over an inch deep on the grass on the side of the road. Once we arrived at Cat Fish Lake we had the boat landing to ourselves. We couldn’t imagine why there were no other anglers out that morning.
We pulled out from the landing and decided to proceed slowly in an effort to keep our hands and bodies somewhat comfortable. Our tactic was to position the boat so the wind would allow us to drift over the break line. We had two anglers casting artificial lures and my job was to control a live sucker and keep the boat over the break line.
After fishing for a few hours we stopped at a resort to warm up and have lunch. Following lunch we were at it again. We drifted over a weedy point where the wind was hitting it full blast. A musky hit our sucker, Lee grabbed the rod and we boated a 36-inch musky. We took several pictures and released the musky alive to fight another day. An hour later we caught another musky that was several inches longer.
When we gathered at Holiday Acres that evening we found that it had been a difficult day of fishing for most of the anglers.
At the end of the second day of fishing the total number of fish caught during the weekend was only three muskies, several walleyes and a few crappies.
We have been fishing for many years with this group from the Jaeckle Company and have fished in more cold, windy weather than comfortable conditions.
An interesting story was related to us last weekend that I figured was worth repeating. A local outdoorsman has reached that age where he is no longer fishes or goes hunting but still enjoys riding the back roads looking for deer with his children.
One day last week the senior citizen called his son and informed him that there were two moose in his yard. The son listened to his Dad and chalked the call up to his Dad being a little confused, as he sometimes is. He then called his sister and asked her to “check on Dad” since he wasn’t sure about the story he was telling. The sister droved to her Dad’s home and guess what she saw!
You are right. There was a cow and calf moose in his front yard. Dad called his son and said, “You didn’t believe me, did you!”
It seems that there are several moose that are being photographed on a regular basis in our area.
The Conservation Congress in cooperation with the DNR staff has set up an advisory council in every county in Wisconsin. This council is the County Deer Advisory Council (CDAC) and is composed of members representing a variety of backgrounds such as forestry, agriculture, hunting, urban/metro, etc. More information can be found on the DNR web site.
Area hunters from Oneida County who are interested in being involved in planning for deer hunting are invited to participate in a meeting on October 21st at James Williams Middle School. The meeting will be called to order at 7 p.m. Citizens are encouraged to participate in these meetings.
Apparently the grouse are on the downward portion of their cycle. Hunters are reporting that they are having few flushes.
Longtime Northwoods outdoors personality Roger Sabota writes a bi-monthly column for the Star Journal.
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